Pound Flutters as Brexit Kicks Off

March 30, 2017

Pound Flutters as Brexit Kicks Off

Pound Flutters as Brexit Kicks Off

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Editor’s Remarks:The pound saw a mixed day yesterday as markets worked themselves into excitement over the historic triggering of Article 50 before cooling back down. The pound climbed 0.6% against the Euro as Prime Minister Theresa May’s letter made its way to European Council President Donald Tusk’s office, settling down to 0.3% by the late evening. Meanwhile, the FTSE 100 finished the day at 0.4% off the back of the pound’s fall against the dollar, helped along by the London Stock Exchange 2.7% share price gain after Brussels scuppered its £21bn merger with Deutsche Börse. A few more inches towards its 50-day moving average of $1.2426, an important threshold for the currency market, would risk a good deal more volatility for the pound. Overall, though, the British currency’s fluctuations were rather calm, confirming analysts’ widely-held belief that markets had taken the Brexit trigger in their stride, pricing it in. And whilst the pound sits in choppy waters against the world’s reserve currency, its last month of progress against the euro shown in today’s chart shows it sitting low but comfortably. This could well spur further inflation in the UK and growth in its price-sensitive exports, as a sense of stability between Britain’s currency and that of its main trading partners will make pricing decisions easier on longer-term contracts.

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